Between the Godfather and the Mafia: Situating Right-Wing Interventions in the Bombay Film Industry (19922002)

Drawing primarily on trade press discourse, this article interrogates right-wing interventions in the Bombay film industry in the 1990s. It argues that there were unprecedented levels of investment by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Shiv Sena, both material and ideological, in Hindi cinema. It examines the changing dynamics between the State and Hindi cinema leading to industry status in 1998 and its implications: the influential role of Shiv Sena leader Bal Thackeray as mediator of industrial disputes; the nexus between stars and politicians; underworld film financing; the use of the cinematic apparatus and exhibition sites for right-wing propaganda and electoral campaigning, and controversies over growing instances of partisan tax exemptions and national film awards. What is also suggested is that there were industrial shifts towards corporatisation in order to reinvent the Bombay film industry as a global player for diasporic consumption and investment, assisted by BJP-led State fiscal policies, incentives and conventions.